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Italian Museum Removes Sculpture by Chapmans After Children’s Group Complains

By Elisabetta Povoledo August 11, 2014 1:57 pmAugust 11, 2014 1:57 pm

ROME – A sculpture depicting two nude pubescent girls by the British artists Jake and Dinos Chapman was removed from Italy’s national museum for contemporary art over the weekend after a children’s rights organization denounced it as child pornography.

Titled “Piggyback,” the sculpture depicts one young girl on the shoulders of another girl who has a penis sticking out of her mouth. It was donated in 2010 to the National Museum for the Art of the XXIst Century, better known by the acronym Maxxi, and was included in an exhibition of works in the museum’s permanent collection.

Antonio Marziale, the director of the Observatory for the Rights of Minors, said he had written to Italy’s culture minister to have the sculpture removed after receiving “vibrant and indignant protests on the part of visitors” to the museum, according to a statement on the Observatory’s website.

Maxxi officials defended the piece, and the artists, whom they described “as among the most important in the international panorama,” in a statement. “Crudeness is part of the Chapmans’ works, which have always been characterized by works that denounce a sick reality, that challenge false morality, and that want to generate debate,” Anna Mattirolo, the director of Maxxi, said. “We believe firmly in and support artistic freedom of expression.”

The museum noted that signs had been posted in several places to warn of the nature of several pieces in the exhibition.

But the museum agreed to remove the sculpture a few days before it had been scheduled to be replaced by other works in the permanent collection. And Ms. Mattirolo invited the Observatory to engage in a debate with the museum about the themes raised by the Chapmans’ works, “given that the function of the work of art is that to raise questions.”

Mr. Marziale said on the website his group was not against freedom of artistic expression, but wanted to avoid “that under the guise of art, representations that were clearly child pornographic be promoted.”